Pinchas,

Pinchas, today’s Parasha, is one of three places in the Torah that describes Yom Kippur. It is described twice in Leviticus In Emor and Aharai Mot and once here in Numbers.

They all describe Yom Kippur as a day of self -affliction. Emor has most of the details about the day as a whole. Aharai Mot makes clear the punishment for not doing the self-affliction. PInchas contains the shortest description of the day.

Emor and Aharai Mot’s descriptions are close together, both being in Leviticus. The Pinchas Yom Kippur description is much further along in Numbers. This is what it says in today’s Parasha: “On the tenth day of the same seventh month, you shall observe a sacred occasion when you shall practice self-denial. You shall do no work. וּבֶעָשׂוֹר֩ לַחֹ֨דֶשׁ הַשְּׁבִיעִ֜י הַזֶּ֗ה מִֽקְרָא־קֹ֙דֶשׁ֙ יִהְיֶ֣ה לָכֶ֔ם וְעִנִּיתֶ֖ם אֶת־נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶ֑ם כׇּל־מְלָאכָ֖ה לֹ֥א תַעֲשֽׂוּ׃

According to the Mishhnah, all three sources are read on Yom Kippur in the Temple by the High Priest. The Mishnah vividly describes the drama of the day… --- Enter stage left the synagogue attendant or the Hazzan He takes the Torah scroll and passes it along to the Head of the synagogue, And then he passes it to the deputy high priest who then gives it to the high priest. It’s a biblical pass the parcel. The high priest stands, takes the scroll and reads the two Leviticus sources to all the assembled people. The sources are close together so there isn’t too much rolling involved. Then he rolls up the Torah completely. He hugs the closed scroll to his chest and says, “More than I have read before you, is written here!” And then off by heart, he says the Torah portion about Yom Kippur that we read today. There’s no reading at that stage, just off by heart reciting. It’s not too long, so the High Priest is not required to have a great memory.

It’s almost as if the ritual in the temple is being given significance by demonstrating that it is all anchored in the Torah. It’s the words describing the actions of the day. Once the actions are no longer possible, once the Temple is no longer in business, the words are all we have left. The words and the story are what remains. But the story continues…

The Mishnah’s description of reading the parts of the Torah about Yom Kippur in the Temple on Yom Kippur is passed along and passed along to the later generations of rabbis of the Gemara.

They wonder about why the High Priest has to say the last source, our Pinchas source today off by heart, without reading it from the scroll. They have a few theories but don’t come to a conclusion. They worry that it will look like there’s a mistake in the Torah script. They wonder if it’s because of wasted blessings. They wonder if it’s a more practical reason which is that it will take longer to roll the scroll to the correct place and that the waiting for them to find the right place will be an afront to the assembled congregation. (We’ve seen it happen a few times at Assif. I can tell you it’s not the end of the world)

The Talmud ends the discussion with a lovely story ….it says after the High Priest concludes his reading, each and every person present brings a Torah scroll from his house and reads from it for himself in order to show its appearance to the community.

By the time the Torah scroll reaches us today, we have interpreted some of the meaning of the text out of existence. In some places, we’ve defined things more clearly like the biblical law of self-affliction on Yom Kippur becomes the Mishnah’s laws of don’t eat or drink, wear shoes, wash, use lotions or have sex. Sacrifices and Temple practise are long gone. The Zealotry of Pinchas has been rejected by the Sages of Talmud. As Rabbinic Jews, we’ve changed the Torah’s literal meaning in many places with an army of legitimate interpretative devices and yet it still remains our beloved and holy Torah.

We still stand today like the High Priest, clutching the Torah scroll as tightly as ever, two thousand years later. We still show the words of the Torah to the assembled congregation and we sing: Vzot haTorah asher sam Moshe lifnei b’nei Yisrael

This is the Torah that God gave to Moses who gave it to the Israelites.

This is the Torah that the High Priest received from his deputy who received it from the shul president who received it from the shul attendant.

This is the Torah we bring from our houses, making it our own.

This is the Torah powered by our love to transcend the literal, to hold a multiplicity of shared meaning.

Zot HaTorah. ---